One Life Left: Top 5 Games of 2012

5) Gravity Rush
The Playstation Vita (PSV) is Sony’s newest handheld and the successor to the Playstation Portable. It is an incredibly powerful piece of hardware that gives a very close simulation to home console-quality games on the go. However, the PSV has started out somewhat weak due to an expensive price tag and even pricier proprietary memory cards. But luckily it has not been held back by a lack of quality games. Gravity Rush is one of those games. Gravity Rush tells the story of Kat, a girl in a strange city in the sky who discovers she has the super power of controlling her personal field of gravity (and anything else close to her). This is directly tied into the gameplay as the player can change the direction of Kat’s gravity with a few simple button presses. With her powers, Kat can fly, walk on walls, walk upside down and even pick things up to throw them at enemies. Along the way Kat meets various other citizens that help her out on her quest to discovering who she is as well as the mysterious creatures that seem to be attacking her fair city. Kat also partakes in other random challenges scattered throughout the game.

Gravity Rush’s biggest strength is Kat herself. She is a female protagonist, and while she has some questionable outfit choices (besides her super-heroine outfit, you have some awkward choices such as a school uniform, a maid uniform and a slick secret agent suit), she’s a legitimately kind-hearted individual who only wishes to do good and feels the pain of those she tries to protect when collateral damage becomes an issue. However, I feel that sometimes she is almost too nice, almost to a fault, and is often manipulated because of it. With a great plot, fun characters and great gameplay, it’s a shame that Gravity Rush can only be enjoyed by those who shelled the hard-earned cash for the PSV.

4) Mass Effect 3
The conclusion to BioWare’s trilogy of space role-playing games finally comes to a close in the third installment. Every major decision you have made since Mass Effect 1 will have some sort of repercussion in the third game. The Reapers, a Lovecraftian army of sentinent robots based on eliminating all organic life have made it to Earth. As Commander Shepard, your last mission is to collect allies from all across the galaxy to push the Reapers back once and for all. Mass Effect 3 gives you a significantly smaller squad than the other games, consisting of characters both old and new. Everyone you knew and loved (assuming they are still alive in your playthrough) make at least one important cameo and significantly facilitate things. The strange thing about this game is that it is nearly flawless, as the story is littered with heart wrenching plot developments and fascinating interactions between all the side characters, something that has always been the Mass Effect series’ greatest strength, in my opinion. In this third game you will mostly be fighting the various forms of the Reapers, as they harvest corpses of other species and rework them to their own needs — basically, space zombies with powers and/or guns. But you will also be facing your allies from the second game, Cerberus, the human-interest group bent on exerting humans’ rule over every other species. Mass Effect’s third person combat was tight but as soon as things got close, things got incredibly awkward if you weren’t playing a combat-specific class such as the soldier or vanguard. Mass Effect 3’s other biggest fault was its ending, as the Reaper’s motivations are explained and a final decision is presented in front of you. One can’t help to shake that following this seven year trilogy was, in the end, really all for nothing. It just created a feeling of emptiness inside. But despite that, Mass Effect 3 is an authentic gaming experience with an incredible cast of diverse and interesting characters who go through some tangible growth. Long after the game is finished, one will never forget the likes of Tali, Mordin, Wrex and any other of Shepard’s lovable bunch.

3) Borderlands 2
Borderlands 2 is the sequel to the first game, Borderlands. While the first game introduced a lot of novel ideas, such as a role-playing style of character progression, stat-based weapon and shield systems, as well as scaling enemies in what was essentially a twitch shooter, the game was often boring, and offered very little in terms of plot and replay-ability. Borderlands 2 is on this list because the sequel directly addressed every single one of the complaints of the first game and remedies them in an incredible way. Borderlands 2 introduces a fascinating new villain, Handsome Jack. While sly and treacherous on the outside, Handsome Jack slowly reveals himself to be an understanding, almost tragic character. As you play the game, Jack will often come over your radio to mock you and generally undermine your attempts at surviving Pandora’s plethora of horrible things waiting to kill you. Bandits, pirates, soldiers, robots and animals of all sorts are just waiting to take you down. But luckily, you don’t have to go alone. The multiplayer of Borderlands 2 has significantly improved as the game runs much more smoothly thanks to a much more stable netcode. Its RPG elements remained in tact as Borderlands 2 introduces five new classes of characters , each with three unique branches. While that doesn’t sound like much on paper, there really are differences in the character builds. My friend and I were both playing the Siren, but he had built his in a way that was much more support-oriented — he would often be healing everyone else while usually providing cover fire. My character was built to inflict the various types of status ailments that exist in the game. While I was busy lighting enemies on fire (or acid, or electricity), my friend was keeping tabs on our health making sure none of us would die suddenly.

The game is made for some great fun with plenty of interesting and challenging side quests to take up once the story is over. The only major problem I see with Borderlands 2 was the time it was released, with Halo 4 and the new Call of Duty releasing shortly after, I’m afraid it didn’t have much of a lifespan. Speaking of Halo…

2) Halo 4

Yet another first person shooter makes the list. The only game on this list that I chose not based on plot or characters, Halo 4 is fun, and perfectly encapsulates that primal urge to just shoot things. Lots of doubts were had during the time that Halo 4 was developed because newcomers 343 Stdios were taking the helm of Bungie’s legendary franchise, and they nailed it. Halo 4 throws you back in the seat of Master Chief, doing something or other. The only thing that really stood out to me in the campaign were the new enemies, the Forerunners, who were an incredible breath of fresh air. After six or so games it was boring to just see the same mix-and-match stylings of just a few enemy types.

The game’s true strength lies in its easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master multiplayer. The large variation of maps, game modes and cosmetic customization options always keep the game fresh. It’s also one of those rare modern games that has also included split-screen multiplayer as well as online, so everyone has some method of actually playing the game. While I was at first hesitant as the multiplayer followed the Call of Duty model of receiving item drops after a certain number of kills, it strangely works better than Halo’s old model of having a specific set of weapons in specific places on specific maps. It keeps the game more random, and in many ways, much more dangerous. Halo 4 is a game that my Xbox will be chewing on for a very long time and easily the best value for your money in terms of replay-ability on this list.

1) Virtue's Last Reward

Virtue’s Last Reward (VLR) is a direct sequel to the Nintendo DS game 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors (999). When it was first released, 999 was my favorite game of 2010, and it continues to be one of my favorite games of all time. When I heard that it had sold well enough to consider bringing the sequel overseas, I was quite excited. But after all the twists and turns the first game brought about, including a final plot twist that would make M Night Shamalyan blush, how was there anyway that VLR could surpass it? But as it turns out, my expectations were passed yet again. VLR places you in the role of Sigma, a college student who is abducted from the local library on Christmas and wakes up to find himself in a room with a mysterious white-haired girl named Phi. Just like in the last game, you and eight other strangers are forced to play the Nonary game, but this one is focused in the idea of the “prisoner’s dilemma.” The game consists of two major portions: novel and escape. The novel sections are just that — novels. These are the sections that move the plot along. There’s a lot of text and reading, so if words are not your thing, stay away. When you’re not reading, you will be presented with the escape rooms: rooms filled with puzzles with the end goal to find the key and escape the room. Just like the last game these puzzles range from “fun” to “oh God, what?” levels of difficulty. But there’s nothing quite like the feeling of satisfaction when you open that final safe on your own without the use of any guides or help. Another thing about this game is that there are 24 different endings. You don’t have to start from the beginning every time, since there’s a handy flow chart in the game that allows you to jump to any section of the game that you want. You can also skip over text you’ve already seen, and the skip function is designed in such a way that it will not let you accidentally skip text you have not seen yet. Genius!

The various characters you meet are all fascinating and delightful to talk to, such as the interestingly-dressed secret agent Alice, the armor-wielding amnesiac K and the circus leader Dio. The character that steals the show, in my opinion, is Zero Jr., an AI who takes the shape of a rabbit and often taunts you and the other participants of the Nonary game. While playing 999 is not necessary to enjoy VLR, you will be missing out on a lot of important plot details that had a major impact on me, only because I had the context of the previous game to guide my judgment of what was going on. Kurt Vonnegut, theories of quantum physics, math and astronomy are just an example of the various topics the game presents within its story. This is something that will keep you gripped until the very end. I know I’ve lost some sleep over it. The only disappointment is that the game leaves you with yet another cliff hanger, but that can only mean one thing: the third installment is imminent.

VLR, with its fascinating plot, great twists and truly devious puzzles is a game that further shows games as a medium of story telling. When I finished the game I had to lie down for a bit to just take in everything that had just happened. Any game that can give me that kind of emotional response is something special in my book, and I highly recommend that, if you can, you give the game a chance. Virtue’s Last Reward is my game of the year.